Mark Henry of Alloy Wealth Says to Limit How Often You Check Your Portfolio

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Mark Henry and his team of dedicated financial professionals at Alloy Wealth Management bring decades of combined experience to their work advising clients on retirement planning. A Certified Estate Planner, fiduciary, and lifelong student of the financial markets, Mark Henry has studied virtually every type of asset and investment available. In his work at Alloy Wealth, he is motivated by the goal of helping clients to secure their finances so that they can thrive in retirement. He does so out of personal conviction, having watched his father lose half of his retirement savings in a single-day stock market crash in the 1980s and committed himself to making sure that the same thing doesn’t happen to him or his clients.

Customized Retirement Plans

The Alloy Wealth strategy is built around a written retirement plan that is customized to each client, taking into account their standard of living during their career, savings, retirement goals, and investment potential. The goal of these plans is to set up retirees so that their investments continually grow and increase in value, while also tapping into them at a sustainable rate to provide a monthly income that resembles what they were accustomed to during their work lives. Mr. Henry emphasizes the fact that the sooner a person starts saving and investing toward retirement, the better equipped they will be to enjoy a stable, comfortable retirement with a lifestyle that is comparable to the one they enjoyed during their career.

Some of the tools that Mr. Henry uses to educate his clients and equip them to save and invest include the Living Large Retirement blog and YouTube channel, which cover a wide variety of financial topics.

Tracking the Markets

Mark Henry and the Alloy Wealth team spend each day tracking the markets so that their clients don’t have to. In a recent blog post, Mr. Henry suggested that looking at your investment portfolio regularly—particularly during economically tumultuous times—should be avoided. This advice is particularly relevant at the moment, as the global economy has seen some major disruptions caused by the ongoing war in the Middle East and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Around 20 percent of the world’s oil supply travels from the Middle East through the strait to far-flung markets, and the closure has raised oil prices around the world, while also shaking up markets as many investors take a risk-off approach while waiting to see how long the conflict will last.

In times of financial uncertainty, Mr. Henry believes that looking at your portfolio on a daily basis can cause you to make emotional decisions that you will come to regret. Active traders are very rarely able to time the markets correctly, and trading during times of uncertainty is often a poor strategy that ends up being less financially effective than holding steady, weathering economic storms, and trusting the various markets to continue their long-term upward trajectory. People who check their portfolios regularly often suffer from myopic loss aversion, which means that they are more focused on short-term goals and losses than on the long-term goals that are tied to their investments. 

Times of Financial Crisis

Rather than doom checking their portfolios multiple times per day and making hasty, emotional trades that often end up being a mistake, it is better for investors to speak to financial professionals and fiduciaries during times of economic upheaval. Fiduciaries are obligated to act in their clients’ best financial interests and will provide sound, non-reactionary advice, even when things feel like they are getting crazy. This can help people to remain calm during times of financial crisis so that they benefit when the markets recover.